In general, a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material (hereinafter, it may be called simply "light-sensitive material".) comprises a support having thereon a red sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing cyan couplers, a green sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing magenta couplers and a blue sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing yellow couplers. In addition, anti-halation layers, intermediate layers, filter layers and protective layers are provided, if necessary. Normally, between a blue sensitive silver halide emulsion layer and a green sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, a yellow filter layer capable of being bleached is provided in order to absorb blue light being transmitted through a blue sensitive silver halide emulsion layer.
In addition, between emulsion layers, an intermediate layer may be provided, and as an outermost layer, a protective layer may be provided. It is known that the above-mentioned light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer may be provided in a different order from the above-mentioned order. In addition, it is also known that, as each of silver halide emulsion layer, light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer comprising 2 or more layers having light-sensitivity in substantially the same wavelength on each color light and having different sensitivity may be provided.
In general, it is important for a light-sensitive material to have high speed and less fogging. In recent light-sensitive materials, demand for image quality in users side has been urged and progress in changing to small format has been seen. Therefore, images having high sharpness and high image quality are desired still more, and much endeavors have been continued so far.
For the improvement in sharpness, various investigation have been performed from the viewpoint of optical and development effect.
From optical point of view, it is known to control the grain size of silver halide emulsions scattering light by making them to mono-dispersed silver halide emulsion and to reduce the sum of light-sensitive silver halide emulsion to 10 g/m.sup.2 or less (in terms of Ag).
In the same manner as mentioned above, making thin of photographic component layer has been investigated from the viewpoint of shortening the path of light scattering. Especially, in the case of silver halide emulsion layer nearer to a support, to make them thin has been known to be an effective means for the improvement in sharpness because the path of light scattering from the surface of light-sensitive material is long. (For example, Journal of the Optical Society of America) 58(9), 1245-1256 (1968), Photographic Science and Engineering) 16 (3), pp. 181-191 (1972).
In addition, as practical means, it has been known to remove nonsensitive intermediate layers mainly composed of gelatin, to reduce coating amount of gelatin merely, to reduce coating amount of coupler, to reduce the amount of high boiling solvent for coupler dispersion and to use so-called polymer couplers.
In general, for a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material for photographing use, a layer structure of a red sensitive layer, a green sensitive layer and a blue sensitive layer in this order from a support for the improvement in color reproducibility is often adopted, wherein a yellow filter layer is provided on the support side of blue sensitive layer in order to cut blue sensitive portion of the green sensitive layer and the red sensitive layer. Normally, in order to improve color separation property (cutting property) by means of aforesaid yellow filter layer, a method of enhancing the concentration of yellow filter layer is utilized. However, when a yellow filter layer is thickened, it is not preferable because the sharpness of a green light-sensitive layer and a red light-sensitive layer are degraded while color reproducibility is improved.
On the other hand, a technology to add hydrophilic yellow dye, especially in a blue sensitive layer, is known for the improvement in sharpness. This method is not preferable because desensitization of blue sensitive layer due to dye is considerable, while sharpness is improved.
In addition, a method to make a yellow filter layer thin and to increase adding amount of yellow colloidal silver. In this case, however, there are defects to make fog of a light-sensitive layer adjoining to the yellow filter layer and to deteriorate processing stability remarkably.
Normally, at the upper side or the lower side of aforesaid yellow filter layer, an intermediate layer mainly composed of gelatin is provided. However, when this intermediate layer was removed as means for making the layer thin, it turned out that fogging on the adjoining blue sensitive silver halide emulsion layer and green sensitive silver halide emulsion layer were increased and the sensitivity was decreased.
With regard to the increase of fogging and the decrease of sensitivity, the detail of the mechanism is unknown. However, it is considered that contact of colloidal silver contained in the yellow filter layer and the anti-halation layer to the silver halide emulsion is one of the causes.